


Buttocks and Broomsticks

by FredTheDinosaur



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, cynical!Trelawney, in deep cover as a charlatan, more background queer staff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FredTheDinosaur/pseuds/FredTheDinosaur
Summary: A series of events in which Hogwarts hires a Quidditch Coach, McGonagall falls for said coach, interspersed with lots of cosy tea breaks with Trelawney.
Relationships: Rolanda Hooch/Minerva McGonagall
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. It turns out that’s not how you ride a Broomstick.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [koboldspucke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/koboldspucke/gifts).



> I wrote this for my wife. For her birthday. I love my wife.  
> It was meant to be smutty but it didn't end up that way. I haven't written anything before. Smutty illustrations may follow though.

Professor McGonagall watched the newly hired Quidditch Coach walk away down the corridor, and tried to focus on anything but her butt. She’d been a sparky character underneath her obvious nerves. Minerva liked that. It was a good sign if someone would sass back, whether or not they were intimidated, both for their prospects of surviving the bastion of tradition that was Hogwarts and for their prospects of actually being a friendly colleague. Those who froze rather than engaged were too hard to push pass the pleasantries with, and there were nearly none who skipped the intimidation stage when it came to McGonagall. And this Hooch was clearly a competent athlete - she’d scored for Scotland every year she’d played - and the injury that had forced her retirement hadn’t erased her physicality. Her sporting history was written in her solid forearms that had twitched against her rolled up sleeves when she’d shaken Minerva’s hand slightly too hard, written in her tense and stocky build, written in the buttocks built up by years of resisting an unyielding broomstick until they were firm and sculpted enough that Minerva could clearly see their outline even under robes, even 10 metres down a corridor-

Slightly pink, McGonagall coughed, turned and strutted away, before Hooch could turn and catch her staring. 

  


* * *

  


By the time she’d climbed the 113 steps of the Divination Tower, Mcgonagall at least had a plausible reason to be a bit pink and flushed. Not that much ever got past her old friend.  
“Ah Professor McGonagall” intoned Professor Trelawny, “I had indeed forseen that you would descend upon my humble abode only this morning as I gazed into the divine mists of my crystal- cor you’re red as a beetroot, what’s up this time?” 

“Nothing that makes me predisposed to your nonsense Tawny, so don’t start” retorted McGonagall. “And I’m opening a window - I really don’t know why you burn all this incense when you’re not putting on your act for the students, you’d think you’d want a break to breathe free air every now and again.” 

“Some of us like the scent” replied Trelawney, snuffing the incense by tipping her teacup onto it briskly. “Is it the sort of problem that requires tea? I can make a fresh pot.” 

“Only if it’s proper tea and none of that floral dish water. I’ll drink any tea you’ve got going most days but today calls for the black stuff.” Mcgonagall settled into her usual armchair while Trelawny fussed the kettle onto the fire, set up two teacups, produced a hipflask from her sleeve and poured two stiff slugs of a mystery liquor into each cup. 

“It’s 3 in the afternoon Tawney” said McGonagall, rolling her eyes. 

“Well if you don’t need it I do, hand over” replied Trelawney. McGonagall gripped her cup tightly. “Just what I thought. Now, bottoms up, and spill.”  


“Well. I’ve just hired a Quidditch Coach. She’s perfectly competent and we’ve needed one all year, but, eh” McGonagall coughed lightly and rushed to the end, “ she’s got a great bum, I might fancy her a lot, could be a bit awkward, I mean obviously I’m not going to make any moves if I thought they’d be unwelcome, but oh gods Tawney I want to make moves on someone and she’d be fantastic choice.”  
She sighed and sat back. 

“Is she a dyke? Wait nevermind, I suppose if she’s a Quidditch pro the odds are high. Hmm. I say make moves, but probably because I so rarely get the chance myself these days and I want to live vicariously though you.” Trelawney frowned over her teacup. “Wait, didn’t you and Pomfrey have a thing going on?” 

“For a while we did, it’s slowed down lately. Organically I suppose. I decided we probably weren’t a long term marriage prospect but it was fun while it lasted” 

“Oh yeah, Poppy’s great fun” said Trelawney. “Did you know we were at college together? Years back of course. Poppy and I used to protest together with the Homosexuals for Emancipation United— ” 

“EHU?” interupted McGonagall. 

“Bless you. Used to be a riot every weekend those days. Running barebreasted through the Ministry for Magic. Chaining Poppy to the railings…” She trailed off wistfully. 

“Aren’t you meant to chain yourself to the railings?” asked McGonagall, grinning. 

“Well, this was more fun.” Trelawney sighed. “It’ll be what it is, this new teacher. Not much you can do yet but play it by ear. And obviously keep me updated with ALL the feelings as they arise, as I’m sure they will. Now, you’d better bugger off, I’ve got marking. And it sounds like we could both use a change of scene, so you better let me finish it now so I can sneak out with you to that little lesbian pub you like on the weekend.” 

  


* * *

  


It had seemed an easy thing to invite Hooch on a date last week, sitting in a pub surrounded by friends egging her on. Now it was about to be just the two of them, Minerva was nervous. What if she just wanted to talk about Quidditch? McGonagall liked Quidditch, and watched it at holidays, had played for her house as a teenager, but didn’t care about rattling off stats and figures the way most serious sportsfans considered essential SportsTalk™, beyond being able to list the 3 most famous lesbian players. Damn, maybe if she’d known ALL the lesbian players she’d have clocked Hooch sooner. Bugger. 

Then Hooch swept in with a gust of snow, pulled off an endearing bobble hat to reveal a flushed and wind-bitten face, kissed her lightly on the cheek with icy lips and rushed to the bar to buy the first round in apology for being late. Minerva sat for a moment with her fingertips pressed against the bright cold spot fading from her own cheek. Then before she knew it, Hooch was back with foaming pints and there was no time to worry about the date, because it was happening. 

She needn’t have worried. The evening slid past as they talked, and Hooch was easy to talk to. She’d gotten over her shyness too, whether by beer or sheer bravado McGonagall couldn’t tell. Eventually one of them led Hooch to learn forward and ask 

“How long did you stare at my butt that day in the corridor?” 

“What!?!” sputtered Minerva into her pint. 

“The day I came for interview. I could feel you watching me when I walked away from your office. Well, that and you keep a lot of highly reflective armour lying around for someone who thinks they can stare behind people’s backs and not get caught. I thought you were sizing me up and disapproving at the time, but now…” she gestured at the two of them and chuckled as Minerva looked her up and down in response. 

“Well, you have a rather tremendous figure”, she eventually answered stiffly. And then, less self-consciously, “and I’ve never seen a Quidditch player with such a magnificent arse. Though I must say even with such a fine one as yours it must be mightily uncomfortable to wedge a broomstick into it for an entire match. I don’t know how you stand it.” 

“Oh we have little bicycle seats attached nowadays, so we don’t actually sit astride the handle. The women’s teams have been playing with them ever since the 1890s, when Beatrix Castor - she was the beater for the Worcestershire Wombles back then you know - got the idea from her muggle girlfriend who was a top cyclist at the London Arena. But most of the men’s teams shunned them as muggle influence, so they’re not heavily adopted across those teams and the Association would probably like to see them banned for the same reason, except the 1921 Definitive Rulebook includes them under “sensible accoutrements -“ she broke off. “Hang on Minerva. Just how long have you been imagining a wooden rod wedged right up my butt?” She stared right into Minerva’s eyes as she said this, half confrontational and half inviting, all pink-tipped around the ears. 

“Well”, answered McGonagall slowly, “I’m definitely imagining it a lot more vividly now”. 

“Come on then” said Hooch, pushing her chair away from the table, “let’s go back to my place and I’ll show you my broomstick” 

And they walked arm in arm out into the snow. 

  


* * *

  


“Well well Mac, seems you’re always looking chipper these days” crowed Trelawney, the next time McGonagall dropped in for tea. “How are you enjoying your dalliance with our lovely new sporting star? You know Mac, I’d have never have taken you for dating a jock. In the sporty sense obviously, not the fellow scot sense, oh bugger the tea’s steeping-“  
McGonagall pursed her lips in mock disapproval at Trelawney’s back, as she rushed to save the tea. 

“It’s actually less of a dalliance than I expected,” confessed McGonagall, “It’s gotten rather intense and I’m hoping it will continue. I’m caught up in more feelings than I’ve had the luxury of for a while.” Trelawny twisted round from nursing the teapot and squinted up at her friend. 

“Do I hear the flapping wings of Hippogriff-Haul?” 

“No, no. No Tawney, you know I like my space. I’m not about to do anything rash. No.” 

“Hmm” grunted Trelawney, turning back and jamming a tea cosy onto the pot carelessly, “Three noes. You’re definitely about to Hippo-Haul” 

“Wheesht your noise before I push you in the fire and drink all the tea myself” snapped McGonagall fondly. “And it was four”. 


	2. I'll show you Umbrage.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Umbridge firing Trelawney

McGonagall gripped Trelawney tightly as her friend sobbed into her robes.   
“Oh there are several things I’d like to say” she told Umbridge coldly. Why wasn’t her voice shaking? She sounded cold, but she was shaking with rage inside. It just never seemed to reach the surface in the expected way. No point anyway, she was pretty sure Umbridge was the sort of person they were talking about when they told you not to lower yourself to someone else’s level because they’ll beat you with experience. Time to get out of here before she started a fight where there was no winning either way. 

She led Trelawney out of the Entrance Hall, leaving Sprout and Flitwick to deal with the bags and trunks, and rushed through the corridors as fast as she could drag them both. Trelawney’s sobbing shifted into semi-articulated rage by the time they reached the 4th floor, she sounded like she was muttering mysterious predictions of woeful events but McGonagall had a feeling they were probably just death threats.   
“You can cut the Inner Eye act Tawney, there’s no students around now” she said brusquely. 

“How do you know?” hissed Trelawney. “There’s always somone watching me these days. And it’s hardly just the students. I’ve always had to be careful of the staff that were reporting to Dumbledore, now I’ve got to watch her cronies too. Like I wouldn’t have left Howarts in a heartbeat — I’d have thanked her for throwing me out if she’d done it a year ago — like I wouldn’t be desperate to leave this gilded cage. But she had to do it the year Voldemort’s back out there, when I wouldn’t last a week.” 

“Dumbledore wouldn’t have let you go” said McGonagall, turning them down another corridor 

“Don’t be so sure of it,”muttered Trelawney, “It’d be a lot cleaner for him in a way if he did. When he first hired me all those years ago, he thought he was buying an investment in both directions. Keep me close and he wouldn’t have to worry about me blabbing how he got the Potters killed by telling the Ministry the prophecy was about them. If he’d just reported it verbatim, who know’s what would have happened, but no, Grand High Mugwump Dumbledore knows best so let’s tell the Ministry he’s worked out who it’s about and already put extra guards with them, and oh whoopsie now Voldemort’s got fucking landing lights to go kill the damn baby. If I breathe a word his reputation’s gone, so somehow it’s my life that gets locked in a tower, my reputation that has to be obfuscated by this ridiculous character act so he doesn’t think I’m a threat - do you know I think it’s been so long he believes it? That he thinks I don’t remember the prophecy at all, let alone what he did? But he thought he was buying an early warning system too, that I’d prophesise for him to give him an edge against Voldemort. But I’ve never given him any I couldn’t help. So I’m no worth to him as anything more than a liability, he’d probably be relived if I died mysteriously in a forest like Bertha Jenkins.” 

“You’re lucky his reputation meant he had to show sympathy in front of the school” McGonagall muttered. 

“That wasn’t luck darling, that was some RADA-grade howling. It takes practice” Trelawney grinned. 

McGonagall chuckled in spite of herself. Trelawney spoke archly, but she could still feel her shaking. Act or no, she’d clearly drawn up some real pain in that scene. Better you than me, she thought, and she opened the door to the 8th room of requirement. 

There are in fact at least 15 rooms of requirement throughout the whole of Hogwarts, slightly over half of which exclusively reveal themselves to queer students and staff. McGonagall knew the easiest to find was currently regularly hosting Harry Potter’s activism group, but she’d never used that one much anyway. Number 8 was her favourite, mainly because it was nicely willing to turn into a cosy common room for her little queer circle of colleagues, and today felt like a day to assemble the troops. Sprout and Flitwick would come find them after they’d dumped Trelawney’s bags back in her tower, but for now it was just her and Tawney, who was at least now mainly desperately angry, and only residually snotty and weepy. She plonked her damp friend into a squashy armchair next to the fireplace, handed her a box of hankies from the coffee table, and turned to get the fire properly roaring in the grate. Gentle honking sounds came from behind her and subsided as Tawney made use of the hankies. McGonagall spotted a quill on the mantel and scribbled a quick summons to Pomfrey, then chucked it into the fire. She couldn’t often get away from her duties quickly, but at least she’d be in the loop. 

“God I’m too old for this” grumbled Trelawney, drier now. “I used to thrive on this sort of rebellion, sticking it to The Establishment. But I thought it all ended decades ago, we’d won, we could bask in our victory. Now I can barely begin to worry about Voldemort probably being back on top of this monster trying to wipe us out one by one. And I’m too old to go chaining myself to railings again” 

“As I far as I recall, it was you chaining Pomfrey to railings” said McGonagall absent-mindedly. 

“Yeah,” sighed Trelawney wistfully. “At least you have Hooch to warm your bed at night and keep your side during the day, I’ve no one and if I even start to make a move on anyone, Umbridge’ll probably fire her. She won’t rest until she’s weeded out every kind of deviant from this school. She already did for Grubbly-Plank, and she’s been sniffing around Flitwick’s records trying to fill in the gaps, thank goodness his deadname’s not on there. 

“Well, maybe we’re not too old for a little chaining after all,” grimaced McGonagall. “At the very least we’ve got to start pulling together more. No advantage in keeping under the radar that we haven’t already lost.” She pulled out a flask. 

“Firewhisky?” Trelawney perked up. 

“Gods no, why does everyone is this damn school think spirits are meant to burn? It’s honest to gods normal whisky. They make it on our damn doorstep, you really ought to drink it more” 

“You know Mac, the way things keep getting worse round here I have a feeling I will…” 

“BAGS ARE AWAY” boomed Professor Sprout, bursting into the room. 

“And we bumped into Poppy on the way here, she’s right behind us,” added Flitwick, wandering over to put an arm round Trelawney and peering into her teacup. “Anymore of that stuff knocking around?” McGonagall handed him the flask quietly. Madame Pomfrey swept in with a rustle of starched skirts and pulled a giant chocolate bar out of her apron pocket. She perched on the other arm of Trelawney’s chair, kissed her on the side of the head and started breaking up the chocolate bar industriously. Sprout had put a kettle on for tea and now that her little cabal were attending things McGonagall started to breathe a little, and found the delayed effects of the confrontation were starting to press on her. She accepted a teacup from Sprout and some fruit’n’nut from Pomfrey and sank into a chair. 

She wished Hooch was here, but Quidditch practice usually ran until five, even in the dark. Maybe after this she’d go walk her from the pitch back to her little flat, and curl up in Hooch’s arms so she could sleep a little while Hooch read and watched over them both. That was always comforting. For now, time to organise. She pushed away day dreams of warm, buff arms embracing her, and leant forward to join her friends in their conspiratorial fireside conversation. 


	3. A-after the War.

McGonagall strode across the Hogwarts grounds, her cloak flapping in the late Spring breeze. Nearly a whole school year had passed since the battle of Hogwarts, but it was only now as the trees started blossoming and the landscape brightened that it felt as though they all might start to heal from its aftermath. The school was only just beginning to move from temporary measures into more permanent ones, and the whole situation would be fragile until the Ministry reforms were complete, but at least Hogwarts might soon have a new Headteacher, and hopes of a new era. At least there were no exams this year. McGonagall had been quite determined to ensure that no one had to endure that pressure under the circumstances, and she was seriously considering not bringing any but the necessary qualification exams back at all. 

She followed a path which tucked down and around, leading to a cottage on the far side of the lake, out of sight of the castle. It was home, and that felt like a concept as fragile as the springtime taking hold around her. Until she saw Hooch grubbing about in the garden, nailing up the chicken coop where Trelawney’s cat had tried to get in last week. She still thought of it as Trelawney’s cat despite it definitely being more of a co-parent situation now that Trelawney travelled two months out of three. The cat was with McGonagall and Hooch more than it was at Trelawney’s little flat in town, and it loved the lakeside cottage. Mostly because it could watch the chickens. 

Hooch stood up and came to kiss her when she reached the garden. Minerva kissed her back deeply then nuzzled her face in Hooch’s neck and sniffed her warm sweat mixed in with bright outdoor smells.

“We got a postcard from Tawny” said Hooch. “I’ve left it on the kitchen table, but the key gossip is she’s met up with Sinistra in Belgium — remember she’s gone to teach in that new University outside Antwerp — and they’re dating now! Can you believe it?! I wonder how long that will last.”

“Well if they’ve made it to calling it dating I’m hopeful a while” answered McGonagall. “You know they hooked up at the Yule Ball a few years back? Back when Trelawney thought Sinistra was straight and part of The Establishment, and when Sinistra thought Trelawney was a daffy drama queen. They had a lot of chemistry for two people who supposedly couldn’t stand each other. Then when Dumbledore died Tawney dropped the act, and Sinistra joined our little circle of rebellion and they became pretty good friends. Mainly because Sinistra realised then that Tawney only pretended to believe in astrology so she didn’t scare folk with her terribly real predictions. I did figure it wouldn’t be long before Sinistra explained that Astronomy was basically maths and Tawney would think that was totally hot. Apparently it took a tour of Belgium, but here we are. Good for her.” 

McGonagall fiddled with her sleeve. “The Ministry consul were here today” she began.

“Oh gods, yes, that was today, how did it go?” asked Hooch. “Are they eternally grateful for your stewardship, as they should be?” 

“Er, yes. They actually asked me to stay on and accept a permanent post as Headteacher” said McGonagall hesitantly. 

‘What! That’s amazing! Do you think you’ll accept? I know you’ve got a complicated relationship with the school, and we don’t have to stay, but-“ 

“No, no I think I will. What’s the point of loathing parts of what Hogwarts stands for if you can’t tear those bits down and rebuild them when you have the chance. Will you mind? I know we could use some rest and recovery and this post might limit that somewhat.” Minerva looked into her wife’s eyes, half asking and half reading the answer. 

“Are you kidding?” Hooch snaked her arms around Minerva’s waist and twinkled at her naughtily. “If I’m I’m dating the Headmistress think how much sports equipment I can embezzle funds for! I want a swimming pool! For underwater Quidditch! And a racecourse! For Thestral Racing!” Minerva twisted her fingers into Hooch’s cropped hair and kissed her fiercely. 

“Better bribe me well first” she whispered, and tumbled them both to the ground. She smelled the crisp woody scent of the herb garden crushed under them both and the warm dense weight of Hooch pressing on top of her, and felt a warm safe happiness that always surprised her, as she pulled her wife down towards her to kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I did not edit this. I am also not going to. Sorry not sorry.


End file.
